


Unspoken

by beetle



Category: Angel: the Series
Genre: M/M, post-nfa
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-05-24
Updated: 2013-05-24
Packaged: 2017-12-12 19:23:37
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 645
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/815121
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/beetle/pseuds/beetle
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Connor reflects on his life with Spike. The inspiration for the "Convergence-verse," but can stand on its own . . . I think.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Unspoken

**Author's Note:**

> Spoilers for NFA.

Spike's empty, and there comes a time when Connor has to acknowledge this and accept it. Or move on.  
  
Though he remembers vaguely what such a thing was like . . . he's not ready for a life  _without_  Spike.  
  
Spike's emptiness wasn't noticeable—at least not at first. Not in the beginning, when Connor was still reeling from nightmares masquerading as memories, and Spike was still reeling from the slushy, ceaseless beatings of his own all-too-human heart. Not when they were both still on the run and running purely on instinct.  
  
In those early days, Spike'd been nearly catatonic with shock—-which soon switched to desperate, restless paranoia, and pathological distrust of anyone who wasn't Connor.   
  
Coaxing Spike out of the room they'd rented in whatever fleabag motel they were staying in was an impossible task after dark, and Connor soon gave it up as a bad job. Especially once they both discovered that being cooped up in a motel room all night could necessitate its own special brand of fun.  
  
Though not a virgin, Connor certainly hadn't been used to having sex regularly, so it was many hazy, come-stupid months before he noticed that all their conversations, no matter how animated, and all their fucking ( _lovemaking_ , Connor called it in the deepest, girliest corners of his heart), no matter how frenzied, was oddly one-sided.  
  
There's depths to Spike. Bleak, empty ones. And not the ringing, mesmerizing cavernous hollows of an abyss, but the silent, open starkness of a desert landscape.   
  
Spike is too still, too quiet . . . too sterile.  
  
Even when Connor's inside him, looking down into his eyes the denim-blue of evening skies for something—-love, hate, pity, _anything_  besides the impersonal enjoyment Spike seems to get out of their sexual bouts—-all he sees is space. Enough to suck in what little of Connor is left, and swallow it whole forever.   
  
Around the time Connor starts hoping to see what he doesn't want to admit is love in Spike's eyes, he has a embarrassing, month-long spell of impotence. Through which, Spike is understanding and comforting, if painfully detached, and after which Connor stops hoping for something he knows he'll never see, and decides to settle for the hope that he's not just the most convenient of many possible warm bodies.  
  
What signs he sees are subjective, totally open to interpretation; Spike trusts him so much, it's overwhelming.  _Seems_  to like being with him, and like  _being_  with him. But not as intensely as he used to like something as pointless as bickering with Illyria. After awhile, Connor starts wondering if Spike wouldn't respond more to a  _cooler_  body.   
  
A cooler, brawnier body better suited to anchoring Spike to the life he seems to scorn, than Connor's own spare frame is.  
  
Which of course makes him feel guilty. Not just because of all that Spike's lost, and all that Angel gave up, but because Connor himself can only grieve so deeply for the person who, in the end, was more daydream than dad. He doesn't miss what he by turns never really had, and had as much of as he could possibly want.   
  
But he feels a nagging regret that grows teeth--grows deeper as time passes, much like Spike's emptiness grows. He finds that he misses the parents he was given so late in life, and that his memories of his family don't fade as time passes, but take on stronger, more poignant hues.  
  
He doesn't know if that's part of Vale's spell, still trying to work it's feats on him, or the fact that he's hopelessly in love, and more lonely than he's ever been in his life.  
  
He'd ask his mother, but is afraid of what Hell he'd bring down on his family from one, simple phone call.  
  
He'd ask Spike, but he's afraid he knows exactly what the other man  _wouldn't_  say. . . .


End file.
